If we drop down to Bogosphere, we get reasoning like this [from the cited post]:HP wrote: ↑23 Nov 2021, 10:12If we drop down to the individual level, we can get stuff like "low IQ people are actually better boxers than high IQ people": https://brainsize.wordpress.com/2014/08 ... g-ability/
Rarely does a post demonstrate ignorance of such widely divergent fields as boxing and statistics so succinctly. Gene Tunney, Lennox Lewis, and both Klitschko brothers are - just off the top of my head - examples of all-time great heavyweights who were/are highly intelligent. That's 4 intelligent heavyweight champs and only 3 dullards. Can't be coincidence.What are the odds that three of the world’s heavy weight boxing champions had allegedly such low IQ’s? That can’t be a coincidence.
You're not tracking the direct/proxy distinction I'm making because you're incorrectly (though understandably) inferring that because something is directly measured, I'm saying it's causally related to combat effectiveness. That's categorically not true.HP wrote:If we accept that certain test results indicated better success as an officer than IQ, measurables classified as proxies by TheMarcksPlan were seen as more important in determining success as on officer than measurables (IQ) classified as direct by him in this case.
Height is the perfect example. We can certainly directly measure height but IMO height alone has so little relation to combat effectiveness that I wouldn't even bother considering it as a causal contributor to combat effectiveness. Ceteris paribus, height seems at least as much a disadvantage as it makes one a bigger target. Height is, however, overwhelmingly correlated with virtually all the other variables that are plausibly causal with combat effectiveness (battlefield intelligence, strength, endurance, psychological endowments such as confidence that come with higher socioeconomic status).
Now apply that reasoning to IQ. It's more often directly measured because many armies applied IQ or IQ-ish tests. Nonetheless, there is of course a distinction between battlefield-useful intelligence (combat-effectiveness causal) and the kind of intelligence one uses on an internet forum to tell good reasoning from bad (the latter being more closely related to IQ).
I haven't been as clear on the causal/not-causal distinction because, as I said above, I'm not that concerned with the details of the causal story yet (see analogy to lathe operators and measuring productivity versus explaining productivity).
Anybody of this opinion is welcome to treat the thread as I treat "What's better? IS-2 or Tiger II, Part 2,376" and ignore it.HP wrote:To summarize: I think using demographic variables in "combat effectiveness" research would be too much effort for too little gain.